Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1887-09-19

But II We are u form an opinion from dem.
onstrstions, or attempts to modify this feat
ure of the constitution, or any feature which
concerns exclusively the features of the Sen.
ate, We shall be compelled TO say that the
ablest of our public men, aud the wisdom OF
the nation, are in the main satisfied with the
work of the convention on this point after a
hundred years of observation. And it is be
lieved that the existence of an important body
IN our system of government, not wholly the
mere representation of population, has exer-
cised q wholesome conservatism on many
occasions in our history.
Another feature of the constitution which
met with earnest opposition was the vesting
of executive power in q single magistrate.
While Hamilton would have preferred he
reditsry monarch, with strong restriction on
his authority. like that in England, he soon
saw that even his great influence could not
carry the convention with him. There were
not few members who preferred in that
matter the system of single body Gas the
Congress) in which should be all the power
of the nasion, or a council. or executive COM
mittee, appointed by thst body and responsi-
BILE to it. There were others who preferred
an executive council of several members not
owing its appointment to Congress.
1t was urged against our constitution by
many hberty-loving men, both in the conven-
ton and out of it, that it conferred upon the
executive, a single individual, whose election
for term of four years was careful lily re-
moved from the direct vote of the pc lple.
powers dangerous 10 the existence of free
government. 1t was said that with the ap,
pointment of sill the officers OF the govern
ment, civil and military, the sword and the
purse of the nation in his hands, the power
to prevent the enactment of laws to which he
did not assent-unless they could be passed
over his objection by vote OF two-thirds in
each of the two legislative houses-and the
actual use of this power for four years with
out interruption, an ambitious man, of great
personal popular could establish his pow
er during his own life and transmit it to his
family as a perpetual dynasty.
Perhaps of all objections made to import
ant features of the constitution this one had
more plausibility and urged with most force.
But if the century OF our experience has
demonstrated anything. it is the fellacy OF
this objection and of all the reasons urged in
its support.
On State Rights Judge Miller speaks thus
If experience can teach anything on he
subject of theories of government, the lata
civil war teaches unmistakably that those
who believed the source of danger TO be in
the strong powers of the federal government
were in error, AMI that those who believed
that such powers were necessary TO Its SAFE
conduct and Continued existence were in the
right. The attempted destruction of the
Union by eleven States, which were part Of it
aud the apparent temporary success of the
effort, was undoubtedly due to the capacity
of the State under the Constitution for con
cerned action, by action, by organized move
ments, with all the machinery ready at hand
to raise armies and establish a central gov
ernmeat. And the ultimate failure of the
attempt is to be attributed with equal clear
ness to the exercise of those powers of the
general government under the Constitution,
which were denied to it by the extreme sdvo-
Gates of State rights. And that this might no
longer be matter of dispute, three new
amendments to the Constitution were 1opted
at the close of that struggle. which, while
keeping in view the principles of our COM
plex form of State and federal government,
and seeking to disturb the distribution of
powers among them as little as was consist
ent with the wisdom acquired by sorrowful
experience, these amendments confer addi
tional powers on the government of the
Union, aud place add tlonal restraints upon
those of the States, May 1t be long before
such an awful lesson is again needed to de-
ri law.
Other nations speak of their constitutions,
which are the growth of centuries of govern
ment, and the maxims OF experience, and the
traditions of ages many of them deserve the
veneratious which they receive. But con-
stitutiou, in the American sense of the word,
as accepted in all the States of North and
South America, means an instrument in
writing, defining the powers of government,
and distributing those powers among different
bodies of magistrates for their more Judicious
exercise. The Constitution of the United
States not only did this as regards national
government, but it established a federation
of many States by the same instrument, in
which the usual fatal defects in such unions
have been corrected, with such felicity that
during the hundred years of its existence the
union of the States has grown stronger, and
has received within that Union other States
exceeding in number those of the original
federation.
IL is not only the first important written
constitution found in history, but it is the
first one which contained the principles nee
eesary to the successful federation of numer-
Gus powerful States.
GAS the British constitution is the most
subtitle organism which has proceeded from
tuition is the most wonderful work ever
struck off at given time by the brain and
purpose of man."
And while heartily endorse this, and feel
it impossible to find language in which to
express my admiration and my love for the
Constitution of the United States, and my
profound belief that the wisdom of man, un
aided by inspiration, has produced no writing
so valuable to humanity, should fail of
most important duty if | did not say on this
public occasion, that no amount Of wisdom in
constitution can produce wise government
unless there is suitable response in the
spirit of the people.
The Anglo-Ssxon race from whom we in
herit so much that is valuable in our charac-
ter, as we'll as our institutions, has been re-
marksble in all its history for love of law
and order. While other people equally cul-
tivated, have paid their devotion to the man
in power, as representative of the law which
he enforces, the English people and we their
have venerated the law itself,
looking past its administrators, aud giving
our allegiance and our obedience to the prin-
ciples which govern organized society. Ii
has been said that dozen Englshmen or
thrown on an uninhabited island,
would at oace proceed to adopt code Of
laws for their government, and elect t1e
officers who were to enforce them. And GER
tsinly this proposition is borne ont by the
early history of our emigrants 20 California,